Ido Eisenberg

Project abstract:Antenna complexes of photosynthetic cyanobacteria poses superior excitation transfer efficiency at room temperature. Recent studies showed that the exceptional energy transfer in certain antenna systems could be ascribed to coherent quantum properties. In this study we aim to explore how to control and use these properties in order to improve existing solar cell efficiencies. This is being studied in two stages. At the first stage, the superior energy transfer is examined using photosynthetic antenna proteins. Then, the acquired principles will be imposed by hybrid organic-nano dots system. For this, we measured the emission of light harvesting antenna proteins from cyanobacteria (oxygen evolving bacteria). These complexes, Phycobilisome (PBS), were isolated and dried on Si substrate. Preliminary results exhibit a peak shift from PBS in solution that resembles the in vivo protein emission (figure 1). We believe that during the drying process the PBS tend to arrange in ordered structures that may mimic the super-molecular organization of native proteins. Further investigations of dried sample of one of the PBS units, Phycocyanin, revealed very ordered tree-like structures made of long and narrow rods surrounded by NaCl crystals (figure 2).